Munich is one of Europe’s most successful knowledge regions. Since the 19seventies, the state of Bavaria follows a concept of decentralisation of Munich’s universities. To avoid risks for the city and the universities, planning guidelines and the spatial concept of the “Three Science Belts” are discussed.

Abstract

With almost 90.000 students in three universities, one university for applied sciences and almost a dozen of colleges for music, film and fine arts - and with almost 50.000 researchers in companies and institutes, Munich is a hub of the European knowledge landscape. But there are some blind spots on this bright picture.According to a comparative research project of Euricur institute, Rotterdam (Prof. Dr. Leo van den Berg), the main location factors for the knowledge economy are knowledge base, economic base, quality of life, accessibility, urban diversity, urban scale and social equity. For Munich, the main risk factor is urban diversity: for instance student’s and resarcher’s housing problems due to the high rents, the difficulties to find cheap locations for founders and creative experimentalists. New risks come from the further suburbanisation of university-institutes, which leave physical and symbolic voids in the traditional inner city university quarters.A possible strategy could be the “Three Science Belts” – interconnected clusters with different character. First the inner city belt, where the “old” universities, Max-Planck-headquarter, Siemens-Forum and the European Patent Organisation are located. Second the middle belt(“Science Boulevard”), where Fraunhofer, BMW, and others are located and where the new Munich Technology Center is under construction. Third the outer belt of “Satellites”, following as well the Munich Green Belt as the motorway ring, with Siemens Research center in Neuperlach, the campus sites in Freising, Garching and Großhadern-Martinsried. While the inner belt has its own traditional urban identity, the middle ring area is beeing developed by many initiatives of city planning and urban renewal to create identifiable, modern places as gateway between the suburban to the urban sphere. The suburban belt has the most problems with lack of identity, urbanity and character of place, it has deficits in the infrastructure for researchers and students. These “three belts” are interconnected physically by underground or S-Bahn, by ring roads and high speed data-highways. To form a symbolic net-work between the places of creativity, to present them as parts of a bigger entity, it will be necessary to create an “urban landscape of knowledge” by urbanistic interventions, landscaping (Regional Parks) and marketing.The case study reports about implementation of these strategies and formulates “lessons learned”.